November 2010

11/19/2010

When I scrapbooked photos of my friend Jaime's legendary beach parties for her Memory Book, I wanted to capture the essence of life by the ocean. We are immensely lucky to live only moments from beautiful beaches and we take every opportunity we can to gather on them. I had some great paper that had photographic images of a Cape Cod-style sandy beach with weathered fencing that was perfect for the occasion. (When I stiched the pages of my double-page layout together in photoshop, I somehow got the intensity of the colors wrong and the color of the sand and sky don't match up here as well as they do in the actual layout.) I love the "Life's a Beach" sticker placed on the bottom of the layout -it actually has real sand and tiny shells attached to it, and adds a great touch.

Another challenge was to tell the story of 30 years of fabulous dress-up parties in just two scrapbook pages. I found a really cool-looking journaling block that was the perfect tool for anchoring the page. I listed all the titles of the crazy dress-up parties we attended through the years and then arranged the photos as if they had been randomly dropped across the two pages. I used a dark floral printed paper thatdid not distract the eye from the photos as a background. This "random" arrangement, together with clever cropping, enabled me to fit 18 photos on my layout! Here's a close-up of the journaling block:

Jaime's scrapbook also included layouts devoted to her family, her catering company, her passion for sailing, and some humorous party shots that are too personal for public posting. One of my favorite layouts is devoted to the men in her life, past and present. But perhaps my favorite page is the final one, in which a very young and very tanned Jaime leans on a balcony railing looking off in the distance as if looking ahead into the future:

I adhered a gorgeous die-cut paper from Webster's Pages to a black background with the beautiful photo of Jaime front and center. I added a simple title: "Celebrate Life" and a couple of silk flowers which completed the story of Jaime perfectly, and offered a fitting closing page to her Memory Book.

On that note, I will end my 8-part series on "A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday". I hope you have found some inspiration and perhaps a little joy in these pages. I will close with a photo of Jaime's birthday cake -an amazing Gingerbread Cake baked by Martha, who appears in an earlier post about Jaime's TGIF girlfriends. The tradition in our circle is that everyone present is invited to place a ring on one of the birthday-girl's lit candles while making a wish, and as the candles are blown out, all the girlfriends' wishes will also come true.

Incidentally, the recipe for this truely delicious ginger cake may be found in Susan Branches 2011 Calendar available through her website and in stores now...a great Holiday gift idea!

11/12/2010

A cheerful layout designed with lovely patterned papers from Webster's Pages -this one is the story about my 30-year friendship with Jaime. It's not easy condensing thirty years into a double-page scrapbook layout, but I chose some of my favorite photos and shared events and ignored the fact that the quality or lighting was not always ideal. It is the essence of the enduring friendship that is captured -highlighted by simple hand-written journaling intended to remind Jaime of the moments we've shared through the years.

On this closer view of the right-hand page, the subtle message printed on the upper right: "Live the life you have imagined" is clearly visible...and very appropriate for Jaime, who inspires us all to reach higher in our lives. The 3-dimensional flower sticker just above the journaling on the upper left is from another company altogether, but fit in beautifully with the Webster paper.

I cropped the photo of me sitting on the beach with my two young sons into a circle, which not only draws the eye to it, but allows for an interesting placement on the page.

Incidentally, if you don't already own a copy of out dear friend Margot Datz's book: A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids, you should pick up a copy. You'll find some really profound woman-to-woman advice and exquisite illustrations. The photo on the lower right was taken at Margot's book signing, which Jaime also attended, at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven before the tragic fire destroyed the original building.

I hope this post has inspired you in some way...perhaps to honor a valued friendship in a special way.

11/01/2010

So this past month, I've been going on & on about the virtues of using great scrapbooking paper to enhance layouts and to simplify the process when pressed for time. In this post, I'd like to introduce you to another line of printed papers that I am absolutely wild about - Graphic 45. I found them at a recent Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooking Convention and became completely hooked! (In fact, I just purchased their new Halloween Collection, which has a vintage Alice in Wonderland theme, which I will blog about soon.)

For Jaime's Memory Book, Graphic 45 had the absolutely perfect paper to use for our dear friend Sue Branch's layout. If you're not already familiar with the beautiful line of cookbooks, calendars, quilting fabric, notecards, etcetera, of Susan Branch you must look her up (her website is breathtaking). Her first book, Heart of the Home - a lovingly illustrated, original cookbook written in Sue's own handwritten script, set the tone many years ago for what would blossom into a very successful, lucrative business. So it was not surprising when Sue presented me with beautiful original artwork/ journaling that I was to use in the layout about her friendship with Jaime. Since all the girlfriends consider Sue the domestic goddess of our group, it was fitting to use paper from the beautiful vintage-style line from Graphic 45 aptly called 'Domestic Goddess'.

On the left side of the double-page layout, I used a really charming vintage silverware-themed paper in a pretty steely-blue. I added trim that I cut off of another paper from the same collection & adhered it to the left of the page. I also added the Blue-Ribbon Pie graphic, cut out from the same Graphic 45 line. The canister of sugar and the baking bowl were cut out of a Cosmo Cricket paper called Elements from the Early Bird Collection. I raised them on foam adhesive dots to make them pop off the page. Don't you think Sue's "recipe card" artwork is amazing? Now that's journaling at its best!

In the right-hand page of the layout, I repeated the blue...here again, I cut off the border of a coordinating paper and glued it onto a really cute paper with a teapot design...so Sue Branch! (The queen of vintage teapots & teacups & tablecloths!) I couldn't resist adding the "Domestic Goddess" title, and then added journaling of my own to complete the story. Notice the color choice that frames the journaling block...the touch of yellow ties in with the bowl's stripe, the aprons & the fruit on the opposite page and helps coordinate it with the yellow in the teapot paper. It just makes your eye dance around the layout, but in a comfortable, playful way. (I also used the teapot paper to mat the two photos on the left side of the layout & then punched them up with a touch of the red to pull it all together.)

Sue and Jaime both loved the layout and felt it represented the essence of Susan Branch beautifully. The lesson in this post is that paper selection can truely tell the story of your layout as well as the photos can. Also: clever, inexpensive embellishments can be cut out of patterned paper and used with great success to enhance any layout. The only additional embellishments are the 4 brads that hold on the journaling block...the rest is all paper!

So take a second look at your paper stash and discover new ways to use the lovely patterns on them...Enjoy!